NFL Coaching Hires So Far…

I am an old, fat guy.  In terms of physical appearance and charm, I reside right there at the same point on the scale as Shrek.  I have not descended to the depths of Jabba the Hut – – but I appear to be trending in that direction.  This is not something that keeps me awake at night; I live by the simple self-awareness of Popeye the Sailor:

“I yam what I yam…”

However, my age and my “charm level” does give me standing to be highly offended by the early coaching hiring decisions in the NFL.  Two of the early hires appear to me to be “underqualified, young pretty boys”.  Rather than use my life status as a way to feign outrage at the blatant ageism and grotesque-ism on display here, I will simply tell you why I was really surprised by the decisions to hire Matt LaFleur in Green Bay and Kliff Kingsbury in Arizona.

1. Matt LaFleur was the Skins’ QB coach when Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator.  His pupils at the time included RG3, Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy; the Skins enjoyed little success during that period and none of his student QBs have shown greatness to date.  He spent 2 years with the Falcons as their QB coach when Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator there.  They went to a Super Bowl, but it would be a stretch to say that LaFleur was the instrument of a career emergence for Matt Ryan in Atlanta.  Please note that when Shanahan took off from the Falcons to take over the Niners, he did not take LaFleur with him.  Last year, LaFleur got a promotion to be the offensive coordinator for the Titans and worked with Marcus Mariota there.  Let’s just say that the Titans’ offense scared just about no one in the NFL; I could make a case that Mariota regressed slightly last year, but I am willing to attribute that to having a new offensive system that he had to learn.  And now, Matt LaFleur is the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
2. Kliff Kingsbury was the head coach at Texas Tech – his alma mater by the way – from 2013 until last month when he was fired.  Prior to that, he had been an offensive coordinator at University of Houston and Texas A&M.  His overall head coaching record in college is 35-40 despite coaching the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield at Texas Tech.  Last year, Texas Tech was 5-8 and three of those wins came over Lamar, E. Washington and Kansas.  And now, Kliff Kingsbury is the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals.

Maybe one of these guys is the “next Sean McVay” or maybe he is even the “next Bill Walsh” in terms of offensive innovation.  If that is the case, I will tip my hat to them and say that GMs in Green Bay and Arizona were brilliant in seeing whatever it was that they saw because there is nothing tangible on the curriculum vitae of either of these guys to say that he should be one of the first guys off the board in the hiring frenzy season for the NFL.

But they do look good and presentable when dressed up for a press conference…

Enough of my faux aggrievement…  There is an NFL coach who ought to be at least miffed by yesterday’s events.  Gregg Williams got his walking papers from the Browns when the team selected Freddie Kitchens as their new head coach.  Kitchens was the Browns’ offensive coordinator last year whose role with the team expanded when Hue Jackson and Todd Haley were fired in mid-season.  Williams’ role with the team similarly expanded then; Williams took over as the interim head coach and the Browns went 5-3 with Williams in that role.

• Quick Quiz:  Who is the last Cleveland Browns’ head coach to leave the job with a winning record before Gregg Williams?  Answer below…

It is impossible from the outside to know all of what changed for the Browns once Haley and Jackson were gone but it would seem that both Kitchens and Williams had something going for them that was absent before the mid-season firings.  If this were a year ago and Jimmy Haslam were overseeing the hiring process, I would be skeptical about the choice; Haslam has yet to make a cogent personnel move since buying the Browns in 2012.  However, all reports say that Browns’ GM John Dorsey made this call and Dorsey is highly respected as a “football guy”.  Therefore, I will sit back and wait to see how all this pans out.  The Browns have plenty of young talent on the roster; they should be a playoff contender next year.

The selection of Kitchens as the guy to take over the tiller here combined with the immediate dismissal of Williams from the team leaves a little room for speculation about the relationship between Kitchens, Williams and Dorsey.  You would think that the strong close to the season would motivate the team to “keep the band together”.  That is not happening in Cleveland…

• Quiz answer:  Marty Schottenheimer was the last Browns’ coach to leave the job with a winning record.  From 1984 through 1988, Schottenheimer’s Browns were 44-27.

Many NFL coaches are animated on the sidelines.  Some take it to extremes like Jerry Glanville or Pete Carroll or Bill Cowher.  However, there are some who are very restrained in their sideline demeanor; I have referred to them in the past as the “Easter Island Statue” coaches.  Tom Landry and Bill Walsh were almost aloof on the sidelines most of the time; Norv Turner often looked halfway between “bored” and “amused” on the sidelines; Jim Caldwell looked as if someone had just awakened him from a nap in his recliner; Todd Bowles’ change of expression from “outrage” to “euphoria” would be hard to detect.

And that leads me to wonder who will be the next “Easter Island Statue” coach in the NF for next year.  Ron Rivera?  Andy Reid?

Finally, Dwight Perry had this item in the Seattle Times a few weeks ago:

“Michael Vick advised the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson to ‘proceed with caution’ when it comes to:

• “a) running too much as an NFL quarterback
• “b) choosing his off-the-field activities.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………